


Partly cloudy, clear by evening

by ealcynn



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Angst, BAMF Crutchie, Canon Disabled Character, Child Death, Concussions, Disability, Friendship, Gen, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Kelly Being an Idiot, Let Crutchie Say Fuck, Major Character Injury, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Canon, Swearing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence, no beta we die like men, so much research
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23691634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ealcynn/pseuds/ealcynn
Summary: When people see them together, they all assume it was Jack Kelly that saved Crutchie. The newsies know it was the other way around.
Relationships: Crutchie & Jack Kelly
Comments: 17
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newsboys of Lower Manhattan fight the elements, the flu and each other, and take in a brand new newsie.

**1896**

Jack Kelly is fourteen and a half when he decides that no matter what anyone says, winter is the worst. 

Summer in Manhattan, yeah, that ain't fun. Heat like a physical weight and folks sweating even in the shade, scorching pavement burning through bare feet or worn-out boots, throats dry and hoarse with every hawk and shout. Tempers get as high as the stink in the streets and bitter territory disputes boil over at the slightest provocation. Every day brings fights and black eyes and split lips. And then there’s the nights, the long sleepless nights in the suffocating airlessness of stifling rooms and barely a breath of wind even when he escapes to the rooftops. 

But winter... Winter turns discomfort into real danger. There’s never enough coats or scarves or warm beds to go round, for one thing. Suddenly, none of shucking clams nor picking threads in a sweatshop nor rolling cigarette papers seems quite so bad when there’s newsies freezing their fingers and toes off in the sleet. They snatch what few hours of daylight there are for selling, not that there’s anyone on the street, not that anyone wants to stop in the snow long enough to buy. Then comes endless hours of frozen nights in whatever bunks or flop houses or squats they can find, until their meagre savings runs out and they end up back the streets, huddled together for warmth, wrapped in their unsold papes. Sooner or later someone gets sick, passes it on to the next boy and the next until it’s another scrabble for food and medicines they can never afford just to make it through ‘til spring. Winter means cracked red skin on numb hands, gnawing hunger, and empty pockets. 

Late November of 1896, they'd picked up a new boy. It's a bad time of year to learn the trade, but if it’s all you got then it’s all you got. Jack had clocked him at the World buying papes on and off for a few mornings before the Lower Manhattan leader Dash Levy brings him back to Duane Street, half frozen, in what feels like the middle of the night. New kid comes with the name Eddie but it’s barely a week before the boys have renamed him Clicks on account of how he cracks his finger joints every time he’s nervous. Jack knows his type straight off, sees the way he watches the other kids, eyes customers like they’s targets - kid’s been feeding himself by thieving or picking pockets, and he must be good at it too as he’s kept himself out of the Refuge. Not a one of them is a saint, least of all Jack Kelly, but they do more-or-less honest work if they can. For one, there’s the lodging house rules, painted up on a board over the door - no girls, no chewing tobacco, no swearing, and the first sign of trouble with the cops and you’re out. That’s a one-way ticket to the Refuge for sure. Then there’s the newsies' own unwritten rules. You don’t steal, not from your own. Sure, they’ll hustle each other at craps, lift cigars, or playing cards, or even pinch a shirt every now and again. But you don’t take another kid's coin, and you never, ever steals his papes. Show the new kid the ropes, Pipe tells Jack the next morning, and make sure he knows to keep his nose clean. 

Jack didn’t need telling. He’s young but he knows he's already making a name for himself. Jack Kelly is one of the best, he’s heard people say, better than Dash ever was, even before their leader was drunk more often than he could afford to be. Sure, Jack will never get as much per pape as Harlem’s legendary Blind Moll, or their own Shorpy who’s six and the nuns say has a face like an angel, but the littles can only carry a quarter as many papes as the older boys, and Jack’s got something neither Dash nor Billy nor Barney Puckett before him ever had. He’s got _personality._

And soon these is gonna be his boys. Dash is already on borrowed time - if he don’t wind up arrested or thrown out of the lodging house on account of the liquor, he’ll be 19 in the spring and too old to stay here. Sure, you can have your own place and still lead - Barney Puckett did for years back when Jack was first learning the trade. But it’s hard, and they all know Dash don’t have it in him much longer. He’s losing his grip. Pipe does his best and he’s tough and smart, but he only has a few more months more than Dash before he’s out too. Maybe half a year, no-one is sure quite how old he is, least of all Pipe. Jack ain’t the next oldest by any means; there’s still Squint the Russian, who’s 17, and Paddy and Fours who live on the edge of the lower East Side on account of Fours being a girl. But none of that matters because Jack knows, sure as eggs is eggs, the newsies will be following him sooner or later. He’s one of the best, and he’s been selling papes longer than Shorpy’s been alive. 

Jack takes all the new kids under his wing when they come in and Clicks is no exception. The kid’s maybe the same age as Specs, Finch and Albert, but to tell the truth he ain’t a good newsie. Not many are, particularly them who’s come from other work that’s maybe less than legal, where keeping out of sight is the only way to stay alive. But this is New York and it’s December and for newsies that means selling as fast and hard as possible before night or more snow falls and you end up like Fours and lose a finger. You gotta learn to be _seen_. Jack takes Clicks up to one of his best spots near Washington Square on their first day, then down Bottle Alley the next, then they hits the less rough spots in the Bowery and finally, after a week, Clicks starts to get the hang of hawking headlines, and Jack begins to think that maybe the kid won’t starve before January after all. 

But winter’s hard and before it’s even Christmas, Squint wakes up one morning coughing. A day later Finch starts too, then Pickles, and suddenly everyone is panicking that it’s influenza. A week of full snow means most of the smaller kids can’t get out and even when they do, papes move slow, though most folks is feeling charitable around this time of year, so they can usually count on getting a nickel for a pape at least a couple of times a day. Pipe has them cover for the boys that are sick, best they can, and Jack tells them all to sell in groups, keep an eye on each other. Then even Jack’s unusually robust constitution fails him and he spends a long night coughing his lungs up and by morning he can’t get out of bed. When he claws his way back to awareness, breathless and feverish, nearly a week later, Clicks is missing. Dash has been absent for days, either trying to pick up the slack or crawling into a bottle somewhere, and Pipe is too busy trying to keep the boys in order and persuade the superintendent Kloppman that he wants to keep letting Jack, Pickles, Finch and the half dozen other sick kids defer their lodging debts for another week to notice that one of the other two-hundred kids that lives there is missing. 

When they start asking, the last anyone saw of Clicks was Saturday when he’d been selling the evening edition alongside a more experienced newsie, Wattles. The new kid had shifted his 20 papes by around five while Wattles still had more than that many left, and sent Clicks back to the lodging house out of the snow. But Clicks had never showed up, and somehow no-one had noticed. The kid had been talking about quitting already - finding some other work inside in the warm - and they all just expected he’d taken off, gone back to his folks, tail between his legs. It happened, every now and again. The life wasn’t for them that had any other choice. But Jack had to know for sure.

In the end they only finds out the truth when they send a couple of fellas over to the Oak Street Station House to ask around. Neither Specs nor Henry has a record, they both look like butter wouldn’t melt, and they know how to talk polite to the cops. They come hurrying back an hour later. Eddie McColl, better known to the newsies as Clicks, had been arrested four nights ago for petty theft to the tune of one dollar, five cents, and a bag of stale bagels. He had been sentenced to one month in the Refuge.

As sentences go, one month ain’t bad, ‘specially for theft. Judge must have felt sorry for Clicks maybe on account of it being his first time caught, or maybe because of the time of year, or the weather. But Jack knows from experience that even one hour spent in the Refuge is too long, and he’d spent many more than one. Six whole months when he was a kid younger than Henry for being too poor to keep a roof over his head, then another couple of weeks last spring for getting caught fighting and slapped with a five-buck fine he couldn’t pay. So he knows better than most there’s nothing they can do for Clicks. No-one escapes from the Refuge. God knows Jack tried. You get out when they lets you, or you don’t get out at all. 

When he’s finally well enough to crawl out of bed, Jack tries to go see the kid. Clicks was a newsie for more than five minutes after all, and that means he’s theirs. Pipe knows a way over the refuge wall and the pair of them get up onto the fire escape, peering in through the barred windows. It’s the middle of the night and they wake a few kids out of their beds but Clicks ain’t one of them. He’s not in any of the rooms that looks out this side of the building. They leave a message for him with some Brooklyn kid by the name of Racetrack, but there’s nothing else they can do. They head home and try to stay alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Greetings, Newsie friends! I had an absolute blast writing this. I blame Disney plus, a very long weekend and a global pandemic. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it, and please leave a comment if you did!  
> And yes, this is a Crutchie story. He'll be here soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newsies go to war, Clicks returns from the Refuge, and Jack lets anger make his decisions for him.

**1897**

January is no better than December was, ‘cept all the customers’ charitable feelings apparently disappear as soon as the Christmas lights do. It’s one of the hardest winters any of them can remember, with half a dozen of them paying back double to Kloppman for the weeks they was sick. Then, to make things worse, Dash gets drunk and goes and picks a fight with Joe Nickel which means they’s now at war with Midtown too, and the Lower Manhattan boys gets soaked every time they goes above 14th Street. Nickel’s cronies even break Wildy’s arm when he tries to sell to the meatpackers. But somehow, despite the cold and the fights and the empty bellies they all make it, and before Jack knows it it’s February and Clicks finally gets out of jail. He turns up at Duane Street while the rest of them is out selling the evening edition, and Kloppman, who really ain’t such a bad fella, lets him kip on Albert’s bed until enough of the boys get back to spot him for a bed of his own for the night. 

Clicks seems okay, he really does. He’s thin as a rake, bruised and beaten all over, and more than a little jittery, but for what he’s been through he’s okay. Even manages some smiles for Wattles and Shorpy when they ask how he is doing. But the next morning he starts throwing up and within two days he’s too sick to walk. Kloppman sends for a doctor from the hospital on Hudson Street and the doc fixes up some of his bruises and brings some tonic and ointment they can barely afford but nothing seems to help. Even if they had a thousand dollars, the doc says, there’s nothing to be done for infection like that but pray. So they try that too: Dash and Squint carry Clicks over to St Andrews’ in the hope the sisters can do something. But before long Clicks ends up back at the lodging house, delirious and stinking of sickness. After the winter they’ve had, the boys have all barely got the few bits they need for their own food and bed, let alone pay for someone else’s keep every day. Then there’s ugly talk of turning Clicks out, the winter’s sicknesses still strong in everyone’s minds, and the fear that whatever this is he’ll pass it on to the rest of them. Jack won’t hear of it. Clicks is one of them. 

Specs or Pickles take it in turns to stay with the kid during the day while Jack and Pipe sells as many papes as they can to cover for them, but it’s Jack who sits by Clicks’ bed all night and holds his hand while the kid raves and cries for a mother he probably ain’t seen in years. On the eighth night after he got out of the Refuge, Clicks finally begins to settle and when he goes quiet Jack think’s his fever’s broken at last. By morning, Clicks is dead.

There’s stuff that’s gotta be done. A death at the lodging house means the cops will have to be told, but no-one thinks they’ll give any more of a damn about a dead orphan than they did about a live one. Click had no family and the boys of course don’t got enough for a funeral. Kloppman says he’ll see to having the body taken away and no doubt Clicks will be buried in the potter’s field where all the poor end up, and the orphans and them with no home and nothing to their name. Clicks ain’t the first newsie buried up on Hart Island and he won’t be the last, but it still feels like the kid never even got a chance.

Jack goes out to steal a packet of smokes and then when he comes back to the lodging house he climbs straight up the fire escape and sits with his legs over the edge of the roof and watches while they take Click’s body away in a wagon. He has the freezing rooftop to himself as usual. The others don’t come up here; they spend more than enough time outdoors to want to carry on sitting out in the open when they’ve paid to have a roof over their heads. But they also ain’t been in the Refuge, and sometimes Jack needs the sky and the stars and the open air so bad it hurts. On those days the feeling of being trapped is so fierce that you couldn’t pay him to sleep inside. He needs  _ space.  _ He’d freeze to death trying to sleep out here this time of year, but as soon as Easter’s done and the weather turns, this will be his home again. His little patch of freedom. 

Jack smokes his way through most of the carton and he doesn’t know what he feels. He’s not sad, not really. He doesn’t know how to be anything as simple as sad. It’s more like an ache, a hollowness deep in his guts. Like being hungover. So maybe he ain’t sad, but one thing he does know is that he’s angry. He’s  _ furious _ . Every time he cups his free hand around the cigarette he thinks he can still feel Click’s cold fingers in his, and it makes him even angier. He kicks the wall a few times but it don’t help.

Sure, newsies come and go. Some get better work for better wages, some move away. Some go back home when their folks get over their bad times. Some kids just work in the summer or only sell the evening edition after school. A little extra to make ends meet, and then back to the family. But then there’s kids like Jack and Specs, Finch, Pipe, Albert, Henry. Kids who’ve got nothing else and no-one else. They live or they die on their own terms. The newsies - theys the only ones who is gonna look out for each other. And when new kids come in - whether they stay a day or a season or ten years, whether they have folks at home or not. They watch each other’s backs, because no-one else will. Clicks had been a lousy newsie but he wasn’t a bad kid. Papes was his way of going clean. He deserved better than jail for fighting to stay alive, a death sentence for stealing to help other sick kids. It weren’t the winter that had killed Clicks. It weren’t being poor, or even the infection. It was the cops, the judge, Snyder and his goons, all of them and their fucking  _ indifference _ . 

Jack knows he’s going to do something stupid. He knows that when he gets mad, really mad, that he makes bad decisions, does things he’s going to regret. But he can no more stop it happening than he can fly, or chase the sunset. He just wants to rage against the world, throw a punch at someone’s face, feel the sting of his fury in split knuckles. He wants  _ someone _ to fight for Clicks, even if it's too little and too late.

When Jack comes down from the roof it’s gone noon but it’s still bitterly cold. They said no more snow but it’s cold enough to freeze the mud on the pavement. Bunch of them missed morning distribution what with everything happening, and the bell for the evening edition will be ringing in less than a half an hour. They gotta hit the streets if everyone’s gonna eat tonight. When Jack reaches the foot of the fire escape, Specs and Pipe are loitering in the doorway of the lodging house, both pretending not to be watching for him coming down. The older boy is chewing on the end of his pipe, though Jack knows he ain’t had any baccy for a week.

“Jack.”

“I ain’t got nothing to say,” he says, shortly. 

“I know,” says Pipe. “It’s a lousy hand. He didn’t deserve this.”

Jack feels those cold ghost fingers in his again. He clenches his hand shut.

“Ain’t no-one in this world gets what they deserve,” he snaps. “Else Snyder would be inside’a his own jail, not running it.”

“I know. It ain’t fair.”

Jack swallows. Suddenly he feels like he’s going to cry and he remembers he ain’t eaten anything since breakfast yesterday.

“Where’s Dash?” he asks. His voice sounds thick.

“Went with Kloppman and the wagon when they took Clicks away,” Pipe says. “They went to tell the bulls what happened. He ain’t been drinking yet.”

Specs, ever the practical head, adds, “Klopp says he’ll pay for the wagon, Jack.”

Jack nods. His hands are stinging.

“Is Wattles okay?” he asks, low. “And Pickles?” No-one had really had a chance to make friends with Clicks, but Wattles had partnered him after Jack had got sick, and Pickles and Specs had been the ones to sit by his bedside the last few days.

Specs just shrugs a little and pushes his glasses up his nose. “They’s okay but they’d be better for a word from you, Jack.”

“It’s nearly one o’clock, Pipes,” Jack says, shortly, turning away. It’s not really an answer. “Gotta hit the streets.”

Pipe breathes out a sigh and then nods. “Right. Specs, go get Henry, Pickles, Wildy and Shorpy. They stick with you. Finch can take Wattles, Dutchy and Smoke. I’ll chase the rest of them out and send them over to the World. Jackie... ”

“I got work to do,” Jack says. “I know.”

He sets off for the World. It’s not far, barely five minutes walk from the lodging house. He smokes the last cigarette as he walks, shivering in his coat. Fours and Paddy are already there, along with a bunch of the other kids that don’t live at Duane Street, huddled by the distribution gate out of the freezing wind. The pair of them crowd in with questions the moment Jack walks in. 

“Jack! What the bleeding hell is goin’ on? We ‘aven’t seen anyone al’ mornin’ an’ Weasel was fair fumin’ ‘cause half’a the papes never got sold.”

“Did Dash do somethin’...?”

“Clicks died,” Jack tells them shortly. “Last night.”

“Oh shite, Jack...” Paddy starts, but Jack interrupts. 

“I ain’t talking about it no more. Pipe and Squint are bringing the rest’a the boys over in a minute.”

Then the Delanceys are opening the gates, the bell is ringing and Wiesel’s giving his usual shout.

“Papers! Line up, boys!”

Jack joins the line in silence, ignoring the looks the others are giving him. He hears the racket from down the street as Pipe brings the rest of the boys in but he don’t turn around. When he reaches the front he drops two bits into the box without a word. 

“What’s the matter with you, Kelly?” Wiesel says. “No wise guy talk today, huh?”

“No,” Jack says, shoving his fists in his pockets so he won’t plant one in Weasel’s smug little face. “You fellas ain’t worth my time.”

“And only coughing up for fifty papes, too.” Wiesel tuts, nodding to Oscar, who tosses a stack of papers down on the counter. “You losing your edge, Cowboy. What’s the matter, them Midtown boys finally put you in your place?”

Jack snatches up his papers and walks away. He’s shaking and it ain’t the cold. Couple of the boys call out to him as he storms past and out of the gates but he doesn’t stop. He shoves the papes into his bag and sets off north, towards 14th Street.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack bites off more than he can chew but finds a friend when he needs one most in the last place he expects.

When Jack falls, he goes down so hard he don’t even notice hitting the pavement. Dazed, it takes a moment for his instincts to wake up, and the other fellas get in a couple more good kicks before his body remembers to curl up and gets his arms over his head. He manages to roll with the next three blows but then a boot the size of a trash can lid catches him behind the ear and everything blurs out. 

He drifts for a while. Feeling comes back first. The icy pavement beneath his face, mud and filth froze solid. Whole body feels numb ‘cept for patches of bright pain scattered around and hot blood in his mouth. It’s so cold. He gets up, staggering on uneven legs. No-one knocks him back down. Are they gone? Can’t see much, just a blur of shadows and red. Drags a sleeve across his eyes and just smears more blood into them. Spits.

It’s dark, night time. Streets is quiet now, no sound of boots on stone, though it’s hard to hear through how his ears is ringing. The other guys is gone but maybe they’ll come back.  _ Better quit Kelly, while you can still walk.  _ Maybe he should have listened.

He stumbles away, dizzy. Half blind, he thuds into a wall. Uses the support to drag himself along for a few more uneven, shaking steps. Then his boot slips on a frozen cobblestone and he goes down. Claws his way back up, clinging to the wall but all he can see is white specks in front of his eyes, a snowstorm filling his mind. 

Then he’s on the cold ground again and that ringing sound is going on and on. Did he make it Downtown? What time is it? The icy pavement is leeching the heat from him; he’s shivering. Curls up around the pain in his belly. He has to move. He has to get up and he has to move. If he’s found here in the morning, he’s dead. Has to….

This time it’s hearing that comes back first. There’s that pulsing, ringing knell his head, like the circulation bell or a cop blowing on a whistle. He jolts with fear, trying to push himself up. Don’t wanna be found here by the bulls neither. 

Then there’s another sound, like odd snatches of a voice, and a shadow cuts out the light.

“Hey. Hey, fella. Take it slow, okay?”

Someone touches his shoulder. Jack throws his fists out and shoves the other guy back, feels the thud as he falls. But a moment later the stranger’s back.

“It’s alright, I ain’t them. Someone soaked you real good, huh?”

The hand just comes straight back and pats his arm. Through the ringing, the voice sounds like a kid. One of Joe Nickel’s cronies come to finish him off?

“You’s bleeding. Think you can walk?”

Jack drags the back of his hand over his eyes, blinks the blood away. Can’t feel his frozen fingers, can’t feel his numb feet. Can feel too much of everything else.

“Who the fuck’re you?” he tries to say, but his mouth won’t work and the kid doesn’t understand.

“Come on,” the kid says, pulling on his arm. “Let’s get you up, pal. Help me out here.”

With the other kid hauling on Jack’s arm he manages to get his feet under him. The kid pulls Jack’s arm over his shoulders and they set off down the street with an awkward, rolling gait like a pair of cockeyed drunks. The kid feels tiny under his arm.

Jack’s head is spinning. He barely knows which way is up and now the adrenaline is fading, the pain is starting to light up all over. They stumble on for a ways before the boy is helping him sit on the edge of a pavement. Through the ringing Jack can hear raucous voices, the plink-plink of piano keys. There’s a stink of piss and vomit in the air, and the glow of lights. A bar.

“Right. You got any dough?” says the kid. 

Jack tenses. Should’a known this help was too good to be true. But even if the kid wants to rob him, the answer’s no. He can already tell from the lack of weight in his pockets that Nickels’ boys have saved him the job.

“Just wait here,” says the kid and hobbles away. Jack closes his eyes and leans back against the wall. It seems like barely a moment before the kid is back, but maybe he blacked out again. 

“They wouldn’t give me no brandy,” says the kid, with a sigh. “But I got some water.”

There’s a tin can at his mouth. Jack drinks then spits out blood onto the street. The kid’s got hold of a wet rag too from somewhere, maybe swiped from the bar, and he wipes it over Jack’s face. The cold stings like a slap but at least it’s got the blood out of his eyes. Jack feels his head tilted side to side as the kid peers at him, then presses the rag against the side of his head.

“Someone cracked your dome real good, huh?” says the kid. “Was it your old man?”

“No,” Jack mutters. He shivers again, can’t seem to stop. “Time is it? Where’re we?” 

“Dunno. Half ten maybe. That there’s Bessie’s place, corner of 27th and 6th.”

Shit. He’s ended up in the Tenderloin. That’s deep into Midtown territory and at least two miles from the lodging house. He can’t even walk twenty feet.

“You got folks?” The kid continues. “A place you can go?”

Jack blinks. “Duane,” he says. 

“That your name?”

Jack shakes his head. It throbs. He forces the words out, slurred and indistinct. “Street. Duane Street.”

“Don’t know it.”

“It’s Downtown.” 

The kid makes a noise like he’s sucked his teeth. “That’s pretty far. You gonna make it?”

“Sure I will,” Jack says. He rolls forward, trying to get up. The boy grabs his arms again and between them and the wall Jack makes it onto his own two feet. He sways, dizzy. Those bastards busted up his brains real good, but he’s gotta go. Nickels is gonna kill him for sure if he’s found here a second time. Gotta get back to the lodging house. Beds’ll be over a dime this time of night and that’s money he ain’t got now. Time to worry about that later.

“Thanks for the help, kid,” he mutters and sets off, hugging the wall, towards the end of the alley. There’s silence from behind him for a moment, then a strange sort of shuffle-tap sound on the cobbles as the kid follows him. 

“It’s gonna snow, you know.”

“They said it won’t,” Jack replies.

“Well they’s wrong,” says the kid cheerfully, and he slips back under Jack’s arm and puts his own left arm around Jack’s waist, gripping his shirt tight. Jack realises there’s a crutch under the kid’s right arm; it taps loud on the cobbles. Feels wrong to lean on a crip but Jack ain’t got the luxury to turn down help. And maybe that crutch’ll keep them both upright. The kid tugs on Jack’s shirt. “We best get moving if we’re gonna make it Downtown ‘fore the snow hits.”

They make it out of Midtown, just. It feels like they’ve been walking all night but it’s probably only half an hour later when the snow starts falling and the other kid tells him they’ve crossed over 14th Street. They’re back on Dash’s turf but it’s still more than a mile to home, and if it’s gone midnight then Kloppman will have locked up. It’s moot by this point though, ‘cause Jack is just aware enough to know he ain’t doing so hot. For one thing his head’s still bleeding; he can feel blood trickling down under his collar. They’re going real slow now and the skinny kid with the crutch is shivering like crazy against Jack’s side. Jack doesn’t think he’s shivering at all no more and that probably ain’t good.

He comes round again, lying in the snow. Must’a fell. Snow’s settling fast or maybe he’s been lying here a while. His head is thumping like someone’s still beating it. When he blinks his eyes open that skinny little scrap of a kid is still here, peering into his face. Jack can see his mouth moving.

“I can’t hear you,” he says, and shakes his head. Little dark droplets fleck over the snow. 

“Hey,” says the kid again, faintly through the roar. “You gotta get up. Can’t carry ya but I knows a place near here. You can rest up ‘till the snow stops or your brains settle. Hey? Get up.”

It’s hard, real hard. Doesn’t know how he does it, only that he wouldn’t have made it without the other kid pulling and pushing and yelling in his good ear. They stumble on until there’s a ladder in front of him, teeth of ice hanging off each rung. Jack’s hands ain’t working but he gets his whole arm hooked through each rung and drags himself up. The other kid’s bum gam means he struggles just as much and Jack has to get his arm around the kid’s back and drag him over the lip of the roof until they’re both lying panting on the snow-covered half roof in the deadly, bitter cold. Jack feels a hand in his collar pulling him back; he crawls until they’re both tucked into a corner out of the wind and there’s bricks up against his back. Takes a moment or two for his numb body to realise, but somehow it’s actually warm. The other kid huddles up against Jack’s side and the snow continues to fall.

“What’s your name, then?” Jack asks, but he’s out again before he hears the answer.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie does some detective work, some travelling and the absolute best that he can.

Next morning, Charlie can’t get the other boy to wake up. 

He’s glad no other bums had been sleeping in this spot when they arrived last night. Neither of them was in the shape for a fight, nor for sleeping out in the park neither. This used to be one of Charlie’s best sleeping spots ‘till the cops started getting wise to it. Get in under the two chimneys and you’ve got a nice little shelter, and the heat from the hearths leaking out through the old mortar makes it nice and cosy. The fact that they’s both still alive probably has those chimneys to thank. Charlie’s hands is so cold it takes him a minute to be sure that the other kid is still breathing, but when he gives the guy a hard shake his eyes roll around and he groans a bit. So alive if not awake. In the weak, grey daylight his face is a swollen-up mess of black bruises and his head and ear must’a been still bleeding some of the night ‘cause there’s frozen blood in his hair and down his face, and a little red puddle in the snow. Whoever this fella was, someone really didn’t like him. At least the hands that Charlie had buttoned up into his coat last night with their swollen, split knuckles showed he gave back as good as he got.

“Hey. Hey, fella. Wake up.” 

Charlie tries another shake but the guy doesn’t even make a noise this time. He needs to wake up. Charlie can’t go carrying him and so he’s gotta walk. Maybe if Charlie could get something hot down him he might recover, but for that they needs dough. Charlie tries the guy’s pockets but he hadn’t been lying last night; whoever worked him over must’a cleaned him out too. Time to hit the streets then. The boy tucks his crutch under his arm and hops and slides his way down the ladder. Going down’s always worse than going up. He knocks his bad leg and his boot slips but luckily he only falls the last two rungs and the snow cushions his landing. Soon as he’s back up on his good leg he gets to work. 

It’s slim pickings this morning. It’s real early and after the snowstorm last night there ain’t many folks on the street and those that are don’t wanna look twice at crips or beggars. He has to hide a couple of times behind coal bins to avoid coppers on their beat. But as usual the gimp leg does its thing and by the time the church bells is ringing 8 o’clock he’s got three pennies in his pocket. That and the smile is enough to get his little tin mug filled up with hot coffee and one of yesterday's stale bread rolls at the kitchen door of a deli.

He limps back to the alley with the fire escape ladder. He has to stuff the bread into his coat and abandon his crutch at the foot of the ladder to make the climb up while holding the mug. Even then he has to hold the cup with his bad hand and it’s hard going but there’s about half the coffee left once he’s up, it’s still hot, and he doesn’t fall and die. Could be worse. Charlie drags the other fella up to sitting so he won’t choke and pours the coffee into his mouth. The guy swallows and mutters something but there ain’t no sign he’s gonna get up and start walking himself home any time soon. 

Right. Time for a new plan. Charlie goes through the guy’s pockets again and takes a better look at the piece of folded paper he’d found shoved into the guy’s coat pocket when he was looking for money. It’s sticky with blood, but luckily the thick pencil lines drawn on it is still readable. 

A MESSAGE FOR DASH LEVY.

That’s it, nothing else. Maybe it had been attached to a parcel or something. Funny thing to keep in your pocket. Charlie looks down at the fella. “Dash Levy. That your name? Dash?” 

He shakes the guy, Dash, again but he don’t answer. 

Charlie breaks the roll in half and chews on some of the dry bread while he’s thinking, eating slow to make it last. He knows the fella’s name, and he knows where the guy lives, more or less; somewhere called Duane Street. And Charlie’s pretty sure he’s a newsie ‘cause his fingertips are black with printer’s ink and there’d been a bag lying beside him with a dozen papers in when Charlie had found him. Dry newspaper is a godsend on a cold night - Charlie had torn the papers up and stuffed the sheets inside their shirts and coats to keep them alive while they slept. It worked at least, not that Charlie slept at all.

So yeah, this Dash is a newsie, and Charlie usually steers clear of newsies. Less you’re gonna buy a pape then you won’t even get the time of day, except for when sellings slow and they’re looking to take their frustration out on someone else. He’s been on the receiving end of their taunts and kicks more than once. But he knows that newsies look after their own. Charlie picks up one of the loose pages now and peers at the headline. The Evening World, dated yesterday. Yeah, he knows where the World building is. It’s a long shot - New York’s a big city and there’s gotta be thousands of newsies. But maybe if he heads down there he’ll get lucky and find someone that’ll know Dash Levy and want to help. Gotta be worth a shot.

Mind made up, Charlie fills the tin cup with snow and tucks it against the warm chimney wall so that when it melts there’ll be something for Dash to drink, and leaves the other half of the roll beside it. He makes sure the fella’s hands is tucked inside his coat where his fingers won’t freeze off, and lastly covers him back over with the newspaper sheets as best he can. Charlie wonders briefly if he oughta leave a note or something. But the guy will probably be out of it for a few more hours yet, and anyway he ain’t got nothing to write with. 

It takes him a long time to make the walk downtown, maybe twice as long as it would on a nice day in July. The snow is piled up deep on the pavements, and even where folks have been walking the ice is like polished glass and his crutch don’t grip. His bum leg is aching something fierce and won’t hold much weight - it’s never good in the cold, and half carrying Dash down a dozen streets last night had been too much for it. The other fella’s a lot bigger than Charlie. 

As he carries on towards Bleeker Street, Charlie spots a group of newsies on the corner. He tries talking to them, a little nervous, but they don’t listen and send him packing as soon as it’s clear he ain’t gonna buy. One of the older ones tosses him a penny as he tells Charlie to scram though, so it ain't all bad. Charlie moves on, and at first he’s on the lookout for more newsies, but after some consideration he starts to think better of that plan. For starters he don’t actually know who it was kicked Dash’s head in last night. Not many street thieves would bother to mug a newsie for a handful of pennies, and the beating Dash took looked more personal than business. Maybe he’s a gambler, owes some tough guy more than he can pay? Charlie don’t know that much about newsies but he usually sees the same ones in Midtown and Dash ain’t familiar. Maybe they don’t like new guys moving in. Or maybe he fell out with the other newsboys at the World and they drove him up to Midtown? Charlie talking to the wrong fella here might earn him and Dash both a beating and that won’t do no good to no-one. But there must be some guys at the World that they can trust, right, that’ll do right by an injured fella?

Just past Canal Street he stops in the doorway of a locksmiths to rest his leg, and while shoving his numb hands in his coat pockets, Charlie’s fingers close on something stuffed in the right. It’s a tan newsboy’s cap. He remembers picking it up in the street last night and forgot to give it back to Dash. It’s got dry blood and dirt all over it but Charlie ain’t picky and he gladly pulls it on. It’s too big and comes down right over his ears but it’s been weeks since he had a proper hat and it’s so warm. He’ll give it back, of course, but it’s sure nice while he’s got it.

It takes another twenty minutes’ walk at his slow pace but at last he comes out onto Park Row and sees a load of fancy tall buildings and one with a big gold dome on the top. He finds his way through the alleys to the square at the back, where there’s a big iron gate with THE WORLD written on it, wide open. He looks around for newsies but there ain’t any in sight. Charlie loiters around the gate for a while until a couple of fellas come out of a doorway. They’se both big and mean-looking, with loud ties and shirt sleeves rolled up. The nearest one barely glances at Charlie.

“Beat it, crip.”

Charlie hesitates. “Hey mister, is this where newsies get their papes?”

The guy straightens up and casts Charlie a sneering look. “New kid, are ya? Thinks you can just show at up at 11 in the morning? Jeez. Morning papes sold out hours ago and the evening edition is still in print. You’ll have to learn to hop faster, you useless crip.” He turns to the other guys that’s working on a wagon. “Oscar, get a load of this shrimp. Think he’ll last any longer than the last new kid?”

The other guy looks Charlie up and down and laughs out loud. “That gimp? I give him a week.”

Charlie holds his ground. “Please, mister, where’s Duane Street?”

The guy points to the north with a short club he’s picked up. “You’ll want the lodging house. Now shove off before I busts up your other leg.” He slams the club into the gate with a look of satisfaction on his face. Charlie takes off at the sound and hears their mocking laughter follow after him. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie meets the newsies and it’s not what anyone expects.

It don’t take Charlie long to find the lodging house. For one thing, it’s huge, filling up the whole block where it faces onto William Street. He thought he’d be looking for a single floor in one of the printer’s buildings maybe, but this? This is seven storeys! There’s a drapers shop occupying the ground floor but there’s no mistaking the rest of the building because there’s a sign about two-foot high reading  _ News Boys' Lodging House  _ that runs all the way along the front. It looks...nice. Real nice. 

Charlie finds the door round the side but suddenly he can’t bring himself to go in. It’s  _ too nice _ . He don’t belong somewhere like this, and if they sees him in there when all the boys is out working someone’ll probably just call the cops thinking he’s looking to rob the place. And even worse - the door he can see goes straight to a set of stairs, leading up above the shop to the second floor. He can manage stairs, he can. He don’t let nothing stop him, bum leg or no bum leg. But he went up and down that ladder a lot of times in the last day and then he’s walked all the way from Midtown and he just needs to rest, just for a minute, before he tackles any more. He finds a unused doorway across the road, scrapes the snow out with the side of his boot and then just curls up in it, pushing his fist into his right leg to try and loosen the tightness and pain. He can see the entrance to the newsie lodging building from here and no-one comes into or out, and he wonders if the newsies stay out all day selling. It’s nearly midday, when will someone come back? He takes the note out again that found in Dash’s pocket, and holds it tight in his fist. The kid needs help and he don’t wanna leave him on his own all day, sick like he is. But what choice does he have? 

He’s so tired and worn out that he dozes off on accident and gets woken up with a start when someone yells, “Oi! Pickles!” right next to him. Charlie jumps, looking up to see a tall skinny kid with scruffy brown curls and the biggest ears he’s ever seen staring down at him. 

“Oh,” says the kid. “Thought you was someone else.” He’s wearing a grubby faded newsboy cap backwards, a red scarf, a thick wool coat, and he has a newspaper bag over one shoulder. It looks empty.

“Sorry,” says Charlie, getting clumsily up to his feet. Everything has gone numb with cold while he’s been sitting, and his arms and legs are yelling protests. He sees the other kid staring at the crutch.

There’s another shout from across the street. The kid with the ears turns back and yells “Hey!”. A couple more newsies run up, a thin, slip of a kid no older than Charlie is but with black skin, and another older boy that looks maybe Portuguese or Mexican or something.

“Who’re you then?” says the kid with the ears. His tone sounds friendly enough. “I’s Wattles, these here is Smoke and Henry. You ain’t from Thompkin’s Square are you?”

“Midtown,” says Charlie. “Look, you know a newsie name of Dash Levy?”

The atmosphere changes instantly. The smiles drop to hard stares.

“Who wants ta know?” says Henry. Charlie resists the urge to take a step back, if only ‘cause the only thing behind him is the locked door. 

“I’m Charlie,” he says, pulling out a smile. He lifts up the note. “I gotta tell someone about-”

Wattles snatches the note out of Charlie’s hand before he can finish. He opens it, scans the text and shows it to the others. They turn back to him with matching glares. 

“Look,” Charlie says, wondering what he’s got himself into. “I don’t want no trouble. I just--”

“Henry, find Pipe,” instructs Wattles, cutting him off. “He’ll know what to do. Smoke, get Squint or the Irish, or as many as are in the square already. Send ‘em back here; tell ‘em it’s urgent.”

“What’s…” Charlie starts. Wattles grabs the back of Charlie’s coat collar.

“You is comin’ with me. Come on.” He pushes Charlie along ahead of him, quick but not rough, though Charlie has to hobble a little to keep on his feet, crutch tapping loud on the icy stone. No-one in the street seems to look twice at a group of boys dragging another away, but then again he’d never expect them to. Poor kids is invisible to anyone that ain’t one. Wattles steers Charlie in through the lodging house door into a short hall. The staircase in front of them goes up and up and up.

The door behind them swings shut, cutting out most of the light but also most of the cold. It might actually be the warmest place Charlie’s been since last year. Wattles finally lets go of his coat and Charlie makes a show of straightening his tattered clothes in silent protest at the treatment. Wattles, Charlie sees, is staring at his withered leg with its twisted foot beneath.

“That real?” 

“Yeah.”

“Well, sit down, then.”

Charlie hesitates. “I didn’t do nothin’.”

“Everyone’s done somethin’,” says Wattles, with an air of authority. “Sit down, crip.”

Charlie sits down on the bottom step, trying not to look like he feels small and afraid. He slides his borrowed cap off, turning it in his hands. Wattles doesn’t say anything else to him but they don’t have to wait long. Not five minutes later the door is pushed open and the kid called Smoke comes in, followed by three other boys, all in coats, scarves and newsboy caps. 

“They’s on their way,” one of them says, and then they all start talking in low voices, casting the occasional glare over at Charlie. 

Another couple of boys appear and push their way into the hall and then finally a whole crowd arrive, maybe ten more kids and at the front is a couple of older fellas who must be 18 at least. They all try and squeeze into the hall and the one with the pipe in his mouth barks out a few orders, sending gawpers back to the street to buy papes, or others off on tasks, and it’s a dizzy mess of noise and nicknames until finally a newsie that he realises is a girl yells for quiet. 

The boy with the pipe turns to Wattles but points at Charlie. “That him?” he says. Wattles nods.

“Ain’t precisely what I expected,” the guy mutters. The others seem to agree. 

“What are they playin’ at?” someone else asks. “Ain’t much of a threat.”

“He was hanging around outside when we came past,” Wattles puts in. “He says he’s from Midtown. Had this note on him.”

Wattles hands the paper to one of the older boys, a whippet thin fella with close-cut black hair under a brown bowler. He glances at the note and then gives Charlie a proper stink eye. Charlie decides he’s had enough. He stands up, ignoring the shooting pains in his leg and the fact that all of the newsies in here is at least a foot taller than him, and gives as good as he gets. 

“I don’t know what youse all so upset about,” he says. “I’m just tryin’ to help.”

“Help?” says the smoking fella with a laugh. Then he looks Charlie up and down, and Charlie knows they’s all seeing his thin, patched trousers, the worn-out cracked leather of his shoes and the way his too-big coat is missing all its buttons and is tied closed with string. “You don’t know what this is all about, do ya?” 

“How could he?” says one of the others, the big, solid fella of about 16 who has a permanent scowl and a strange accent mix of Manhattan and Russian. He sounds both scornful and accusing. “He ain’t even a newsie.”

Charlie straightens his crooked back as much as he can and lifts his chin. “No,” he says, “and given what I seen so far I don’t much wanna be. Youse all nothing but a bunch of thugs!”

There’s a stunned surprise for a moment, then a few looks of almost grudging respect. 

“What’s your name, kid?” says the oldest boy, the one with the black hair and the bowler hat. He’s wearing a red vest under his dark grey coat.

“Charlie.”

“That’s Pipe,” the guy says pointing to the smoker, and then gestures to the three other biggest kids. “This here’s Squint, Paddy and Fours.” The five other kids crowding behind them don’t get named, though Charlie recognised Wattles by his ears, and also Henry from before. 

The guy carries on talking. “Now, did Joe Nickel put you up to this? Or one of his boys?”

Charlie shakes his head. “Ain’t never heard of him.”

“Where’d ya get this then?” The guy waves the note. “It’s got blood on it. Looks like a threat to me.”

“That’s what I’s been tryin’ to tell youse!” Charlie argues. “This fella got soaked real good, think they busted his head. He needs help. He told me to come here.”

The newsies finally seem to be listening, because their expressions now start to look alarmed. Pipe turns back to his pals and there’s another flurry of whispered conversation. 

“Hey!” Charlie interrupts, and they all turn back towards him. “Is you gonna help him, or is you gonna talk? ‘Cause you might not ’a noticed but it’s cold out. Whether this Dash Levy is your friend or not, I ain’t gonna leave him to die. So help me out or let me go so as I can find someone who will.”

“Whoever they got, it ain’t Dash Levy,” says Pipe. He’s trading nervous looks with the others.

Charlie pauses. “How’d you know?”

“‘Cause I’m Dash Levy,” says the dark-haired guy in the bowler, folding his arms. “Leader of the Lower Manhattan news boys. That message is for me.”

“So who’s the guy they left that note on? The one I found?”

The newsies all look at each other, nervousness now looking more like fear.

“Ah, shite,” says the guy called Paddy. He’s narrow-faced and with sharp, hawk-like eyes. He’s tall but could be any age from 15 to 18, it’s hard to tell. “‘It's him, isn’t it.”

“We don’t know it’s Jack,” says Squint the Russian. “Could be anyone.”

“Who’s Jack?” Charlie says. 

No-one answers. Pipe turns to Fours, the redhead girl with all the freckles, and then to Paddy. “Get out there and do a headcount. Find out if anyone else is missing.”

“Right,” says Fours. They have turned towards the door when Wattles suddenly lurches forward, pointing. “Hey! That’s Jack’s cap!”

Charlie looks down to where he’s twisting the tan cap around in his hands. Wattles reaches out for it. Charlie feels reluctant to hand it over, but like before Wattles just snatches it from him. 

The newsies crowd around and look at it. Charlie swallows, suddenly realising that the bloodstain looks real bad in this light.

“He’s right,” adds one of the other younger newsies from the doorway, a wiry black boy of about 13 wearing thick round eyeglasses. “That’s definitely Jack’s.”

Pipe pockets the hat. Charlie holds back a disappointed sigh, and sits down on the step again now it’s clear they ain’t gonna let him leave. “So, who’s Jack?” he repeats.

“Jack’s one of us,” says Wattles, firmly. 

“Jack’s the best newsie there is,” says another.

“Jack’s an idiot what’s gonna get himself killed,” mutters Squint. 

“What’s he look like?”

“Dark hair, kinda square jaw, with a scar right here. Big smile. Wears a blue shirt, brown coat.”

Charlie shrugs. “Kind hard to tell ‘cause his face was all busted up. Could be.”

“It’s him,” says one of the younger ones, firmly. “Must be.”

“Well, if there’s trouble somewhere, that boy is in it,” adds Fours, in her lilting accent.

“Don’t you know where he is?” Charlie asks.

“We ain’t seen him since yesterday,” says Pipe. “It...was a bad day. We was worried something had happened to him.”

“Well, it did,” says Charlie. “Fell over him in the street last night. I got him as far as I could then I stashed him in a place I know. But he’s beat up real bad and I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Does Joe Nickels know where Jack is?” asks Dash Levy. “Is he still in Midtown?”

“No, not Midtown. What’s your problem with Midtown anyway? And I told youse I don’t know that Nickels fella. I don’t know no-one. I just saw a kid in trouble and I tried to help. We gotta stop arguin’ and go get him!”

“Alright, Charlie,” says Pipe. “Alright. We believes you,”

The relief is overwhelming. They’re going to help.

“Well, come on then, kid, get up,” orders Dash suddenly, beckoning to Charlie. “You taking us to Jack, or not? I ain’t losing anyone else. Pipe, you, me and Fours will go with the kid. Squint, Paddy and the rest of youse, hit the streets with the evening papes and keep an eye on things here. I wanna know the first sniff of any trouble, understand? Now the rest of ya, scram!”

There’s a chorus of “Yes, Dash!” and “Sure thing, boss,” from the others and various newsies head out. Charlie stands up and then, without meaning to, finds he’s sitting back down on the step again. Damn leg just gave out entirely. He tries again, planting his crutch and pulling himself up. Pipe grabs his arm to steady him but Charlie jerks away. He tests his foot on the floor but he already knows there’s no way it’s gonna take any of his weight at all now. Damn it! But he has to go back out there, out into the cold. It’s a mile and a half back to where he left Da- Jack. Might take him an hour with his leg like this, more if the pavement’s still frozen. And those three grown-up newsies will have to trail along behind him the whole way, watching him struggle, and Jack too getting colder and sicker every minute of time wasted. It’s so frustrating he wants to cry. It’s too far and he knows it.

The others have been watching him. Pipe says, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothin’,” says Charlie, and goes to take a step. Of course the moment he does, lightning fires of pain shoot up his leg and his back, and he falls off his crutch and onto the ground. Pipe hauls him back up to his feet.

“We ain’t got time for this,” Dash says, impatiently. “How slow are you gonna walk, kid?”

Charlie doesn’t say anything. He’s too busy biting his lip. He looks up to see Dash sizing him up. Charlie knows he’s scrawny, small for his age, but even then Dash clearly decides that they can’t carry him the whole way, not if they’re gonna have to carry their friend Jack home after. 

“Tell us how ter find this place where yer left him,” Fours says. 

“There’s a chimney stack,” Charlie tells them, collapsing back onto the step, relieved and frustrated and fed up. “Off the block east of West 11th and 6th. It’s over the Jewish deli, the one with the yellow sign. You can’t see it from the street, you gotta go back into the alley, turn left along the back of the shop and then there’s a fire escape. Jump off onto the roof edge halfway up, when you feel hot air on your face, and he’s there. I covered him with his papes to try keep him warm.”

“Here,” says the kid with the glasses, coming forward. He’s holding out a pencil and a piece of paper. “You better write it down so they don’t miss nothing.”

It’s a good idea. Charlie has the kid with the glasses write the directions while he describes them, and then Charlie takes the paper and sketches out a map with his left hand. It’s not that he can’t write, he can, it’s just hard to do and takes a long time when his hand is tired from using the crutch all day.

Fours takes the map back. “Anything else we should know?” she says.

Charlie shakes his head. “Just hurry.”

Fours head to the door, but Dash is still looking at Charlie, consideringly. 

“Seems awful convenient that you can’t come with us all of a sudden.” 

Charlie realises he doesn’t much like Dash. That doesn’t happen very often - Charlie likes everyone. “Convenient? Yeah, it’s just great that sometimes I can’t walk on account of the pain being so lousy.”

Pipe and Fours actually wince. “Dash...” says Pipe.

Dash is still looking at Charlie. “If this is a trap…” he says, warningly.

“It ain’t a trap,” Charlie says, tired out by their distrust. “I ain’t interested in your newsie war. I just wanted to help someone, and I can tell ya now; trekking all the way Downtown last night carrying your pal on a bum leg in a snowstorm weren’t my idea of fun. Next time, maybe I won’t bother.”

Dash nods, though he doesn’t look entirely convinced. He, Fours and most of the others finally head out of the door. Pipe lingers for a second, then gestures around. 

“I’s guessing you ain’t got nowhere to go, kid? Well, this is our place. You can stay here ‘till we’re back. Rest up. These guys’ll look out for ya. That okay?”

Charlie nods. Exhaustion has suddenly hit him like a brick wall. He don’t want to stay here, but he sure as hell don’t want to go back out into the cold yet either, and start the long slow hobble back up to his usual patch in Midtown. Just the thought of it…

“Just...make sure Jack’s okay, yeah?” he says to Pipe. Pipe gives him a nod. 

“For sure,” he says, and they’re gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie makes three friends and an enemy, and finally reaches his limits.

Charlie watches Dash, Fours and Pipe as they head out of the door to the lodging house and off to find Jack. He just hopes they can follow his directions, that Jack’s not hurt too bad, or gotten frozen solid. He hopes this Nickels fella didn’t find him first. He hopes that there’s enough time.

There’s a conversation going on behind him, though, and before he can pay attention or do anything, Squint the Russian is just scooping Charlie straight up into the air from off the step where he’s sitting. Charlie’s so surprised he drops his crutch and it clatters away down the hall. The kid with the glasses runs after it, but Squint turns them away and starts carrying Charlie upstairs without another word, and so Charlie does what comes natural and tries his best to kick him in the head.

“Let me go! Let me _fucking go_!”

“Hey!” Squint hisses, tightening his grip. “What the hell, kid? Stop it!”

“Put me down!”

“No! Stop struggling. We’s not gonna hurt ya.”

“Fuck you!”

Squint doesn’t put him down though, and Charlie runs out of energy first, slumping trembling with fury and exhaustion into Squint’s arms, and the stairs keep going up. The first door they pass is shut, and they go up more stairs and the next door is open. Charlie catches a brief glimpse of a reception desk and a room beyond like a schoolhouse. Then they’re passing it by and they keep going up with the three other newsies hurrying along behind, and then finally Squint turns out of the stairwell and goes through a door into a hall. He takes the first door on the left and they’re going into a huge dormitory room with two-dozen metal bunk beds down both walls, and tall windows letting in the winter light. Squint carries Charlie about halfway down the room and then dumps him onto a bed. 

The moment he’s let go Charlie surges up and punches Squint in the face as hard as he can. Squint flails backwards just as the other three boys come running up. 

“Hey, what the hell was that for?” One of them yells, while Squint swears and clutches his nose. 

Charlie is breathing hard; now his hand hurts too, and his eyes was already prickling with tears of embarrassment and exhaustion. He has reached the end of his limits. “I don’t likes being carried, okay?”

“Well, I don’t like getting my fuckin' nose broke!” Squint snaps back. “‘Sides, you wasn’t gonna get up four flights on your own, was you? Ungrateful little crip.”

“Fuck y--” Charlie begins again, but the kid with the glasses quickly steps between them, holding out Charlie’s crutch.

“Hey, I got your crutch,” he says. “Sorry that we scared ya, okay? Look, I’ll put it here, so’s you can reach it.” He carefully leans the crutch up against the wall by the bed. Charlie grabs it, just so he knows that he can, and holds on to it, tight.

Squint is still throwing Charlie dirty looks but he’s taken his hand away from his nose and it ain’t bleeding. 

“I’m goin’ to talk to Klopp,” he snaps, “Keep an eye on that little bastard.” 

He storms out of the room. Charlie is left with the three boys from downstairs, and they hover around the bed awkwardly. He realises, all at once, that he’s crying. He pulls his crutch up ‘till it’s on the bed beside him and then presses his face into his left knee, kneeding at his right, his stupid gimp leg, while he tries to stop to pain or the crying or, preferably both.

He hears the others moving around and whispering a bit. After a while, one of the newsies says; 

“Hey, um. Kid? You okay? I got some water here…”

Charlie sits up a bit, wiping his nose on his sleeve. The three boys are looking at him; their faces is sympathetic and maybe a bit worried, but at least they ain’t disgusted. One of them, the tallest boy with a head of tight blonde curls and a broad, open face is holding out a tin cup. Charlie takes it with shaky hands and drains the whole thing dry. 

“Thanks,” he mutters, sniffing and wiping his nose again. 

“I’m Finch,” says the guy that brought the water.

“Specs,” says the fella with the glasses. 

“We met already,” says the third kid, the one called Henry. Up close, Charlie can see he’s younger than he first thought, maybe even younger than he is, though of course he’s still bigger.

“Your name’s Charlie, right?” Specs asks. He perches on the next bed over. 

Charlie nods. “Yeah,” he says, and scrubs his tearstained face on his arm. “Sorry.”

They all shrug. “It’s fine,” says Finch. “You want more water?”

They bring him another three cups of water before he feels like he’s finally filled his belly.

“Anything we can do for, uh…” Specs points to his gammy leg and Charlie realises he’s still digging his thumb into the tendons, trying to ease the pain.

“Na, not much,” he says, putting on a smile. “It is what it is. Just gotta stay off it a day or two and it’ll be good as new.”

“Okay.”

Finch sits down on the bed opposite and Henry scrambles up onto the top bunk above Specs and they’re all staring at him and his leg with brazen curiosity. Charlie asks another question to distract them.

“So, uh. What is this place?”

“Lodging house,” Finch explains. “They run a few around the city for kids like us. Beds, wash tubs, food...”

“School too,” Henry adds, “if we’re back from selling in time for it.”

Charlie is astonished. “And all this is just for newsies?” 

“Mostly,” Specs says, “though there’s a dozen bootblacks live upstairs. Coupla metal-polishers in just for the winter too.”

“So, where do you live?” Henry asks, sounding curious.

Charlie shrugs. “Wherever I wants.”

“Do you got a job?”

Charlie grins and kicks his crutch. “Na. Got all the work tools I need, right here.”

“What really happened with you and Jack?” says Finch, leaning in. He can tell this is the story they really want cos the others crowd in too. “You really ain’t working for the Midtown boys?”

“I was just tryin’ to find somewhere to sleep outta the snow,'' Charlie explains,” and I saw this lump of somethin’ in the road. Turned out to be your pal, Jack. Didn’t see who done him over. He wasn’t making much sense but said he gotta place Downtown. No way he was gonna make it, so I helped him out a bit. He weren’t doing so hot this morning so I came here to get help.”

“What was Jack doin’ in Midtown anyway?” says Henry to Specs. 

Specs shrugs a little helplessly. “Maybe Dash sent him?”

“Sounds like Joe Nickels sent him right back.”

Charlie pipes up. “Who is this Nickels fella I keep hearin’ about?”

“Head of the Midtown boys,” Specs explains. “Him and his cronies is lookin’ to push south. Take our selling spots.”

“He’s nothin’ but a thug,” says Henry. “Dash oughta let us skunk him!”

“So they beat this Jack fella up just for selling in Midtown?” said Charlie. “Ain’t there enough papes to go round?”

Finch gives a little laugh. “Yeah, but the best places is where you gets the most suckers, sell the most papes. Nickels and Dash don’t like ta share.”

“Each of the boroughs has their leaders,” Specs adds, seeing Charlie’s confusion. “Mostly we keeps our distance from each other and everything’s fine. You don’t know this stuff?”

“I usually stays away from newsies,” Charlie admits. “Some of them don’t like bums hanging around their spots. Few are known to give a fella a hard time.”

The other boys look murderous. “They’d soak a crip?” Finch exclaims. “What’d you ever do to them? You ain’t even a newsie”

Charlie just shrugs. It’s how life is.

“So you helped out Jack even though you knew he was a newsie and all they do is pick on you?”

Charlie looks around their faces. “What else was I gonna do?”

“How old is you? Ten?”

“Twelve.”

Specs looks at him with a frown. “You eat today?”

“Yeah. Shared a roll with your Jack this morning.”

“How ‘bout yesterday?” 

Charlie hesitates and then shakes his head.

“Right,” says Specs. He pulls out a coin and tosses it to Henry. “Henry, go down Jacobi’s and get something to keep him going. You like knishes, Charlie?”

Charlie nodded, bewildered. “I like everythin’. But I can’t pay youse for food, I ain’t got no money.”

“Forget about it. In the meantime, you can rest up here.”

“I can’t stay here,” Charlie says. “I ain’t a newsie. Someone’ll catch me.”

“Klopp won’t care, and Pipe says you gotta stay ‘till they’s back,” says Finch. “And anyway, Jack’ll wanna see ya, so you might as well have a kip.”

“I can’t, I gotta hit the road,” Charlie says again, desperately. He glances down and sees the muddy smears his boots have left on the blanket. “And anyway, ain’t this someone’s bed?” 

The three boys suddenly go very still. 

“Na,” says Finch with a forced brightness. “It’s fine.”

“That’s Clicks’s bed,” says Henry. “He don’t need it no more.”

“Why? He move out?”

“Not really. He’s dead,” says Specs.

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Oh,” says Charlie. He realises with a shock that he’d been so blinded by the bright, exciting world of these kids - actual paid work, regular meals, schooling, warm beds, scarves and hats and boots that fit, and _friends_ \- that he had almost forgotten that they were still just street kids. Just orphans like him, thrown aside by a hard life that wanted them all to grow up fast or die trying. A life with just as many dangers as his. He looks down at the mud drying on the blanket. “Sorry.”

“Forget it,” says Specs. “It happens, right?”

“Yeah, but...I’s still sorry.”

“You’s a good kid,” says Finch. “Get some shut-eye, right? We’ll wake you up when Dash and the others come back.”

Charlie nods. Seems like he don’t have much choice in the matter, and besides the room is warm and the bed is like a dream he had once. He kicks his boots off so he don’t get any more mud around the place, and pulls the blanket over himself. As he drifts off, warm for the first time in months, he hears the clatter of dice on the floor and the murmur of companionable voices and he feels like he’s not alone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack remembers what he’s lost and what he's gained, and has an unfortunate run in with the law.

Jack wakes up when someone starts yelling into his face and don’t seem inclined to stop just because they’s being ignored.

“Shove off,” he mutters.

“He’s alive!” someone says. “Jack. Hey, Jackie!” Hands are dragging and pulling at him, and so he flails his arms at them. It doesn’t seem to drive them away like he hoped. 

“Open your eyes, eejit!” says a girl's voice. Fours.

He does as ordered, blinking. Nothing seems quite in focus but he can make out fuzzy dark shapes against a painfully bright sky. 

“Ow,” he mutters, closes his eyes and puts his hands over his ears. It doesn’t seem to help with the throbbing ringing of his head. Someone pulls his hand away.

“What the fuck did ya think you was doing, Kelly? You lookin’ to get yourself killed?”

“Later, Dash, okay? Let’s get him home first ‘fore you bleed him all over again. Jack. Hey, Jack.”

“Pipe?” Jack mumbles. His mouth hurts. Hell, his whole face hurts, and most of the rest of him too.

“Yeah, it’s me. Dash and Fours is here too. Where’s you hurt?”

“Everywhere,” Jack groans. “What happened?”

Someone is patting down over his clothing, and pushing his coat open. He yelps as freezing air batters his skin.

“Quit yer grippin’,” he hears Fours say. “Far as we can tell, yer went an’ got yerself jumped by Nickels, on purpose. He kicked yer to the curb as a wee message for Dash.” 

There are two figures checking him over; tersely examining his chest and back as they peel clothes and bits of old newspaper away.

“Could be worse,” Jack says to Fours. His words comes out slurring. “Only time I’ll ever get ta wake up to your pretty mug, huh?” 

“You know you’re sweet-talking Pipe there, Jackie-boy?” Fours says, from his other side.

“Oh,” says Jack, swinging his head around towards her voice. “Right. Everyone sorta looks the same right now. Brain’s gone ta mush. But I remember enough to know you is a lot prettier than Pipe even if I can't see it.”

“You’re cute, Kelly, but keep that blather up an’ I’ll slap ya meself,” Fours says, brightly, and turns to one of the others. “He en’t bleeding any more, but the kid was right, they bashed up his head real bad. Gave him a fair kickin’ too, maybe broke a rib. They could ‘ave killed him, Dash.”

“I can’t hear right,” Jack offers. He still has a hand pressed over his ear. He thinks he might be swaying. Fours pushes his hand away again and sets about ruthlessly scrubbing clumps of snow over his battered face.

He tries to lean away. “Whatcha doin’ that for?”

“Tryin’ ter make yer presentable enough to be seen in the street, so’s we don’t all git banged up. Yer face looks like the slab in a slaughterhouse.”

“We gotta deal with Nickels,” says Dash, voice dark and wild. “Right now. He can’t get away with this. We gotta skunk ‘em, all those Midtown boys. We gotta show ‘em--”

“No, we don’t,” says Pipe. He’s moving around Fours, buttoning Jack’s coat back up and then he drops Jack's cap back on his head and pulls it low, shadowing his face. “Least, not right now. We gotta get Jack home, get him seen to, and we gotta talk about what happened to Clicks. Then we think about what to do about Nickels. All this with Nickels kicked off in the first place ‘cause of you running your mouth and not thinkin’ things through.”

“You don’t get ta lecture me--” Dash starts but Jack’s not listening.

 _Clicks._ That had been what started this whole thing. How had Jack forgotten that? The kid was taken off to the Refuge and they sent him back more dead than alive, and then he was just dead. Jack had been so angry. Angry and hurting and desperate to pass that pain onto someone else the only way he knew how, with his fists. Click’s tears and his ragged breathing, and the way his cold dead fingers had felt in Jack’s hand, stiffening against his palm...

“Clicks,” he says, out loud. 

The others stop bickering and go quiet. 

“Yeah, Jack,” says Pipe. 

“He’s really dead, right? I didn’t…” He waves his hand by his bashed up head. “Didn’t make that up somehow?”

“Yeah. He’s really dead, Jack.” says Dash with a sigh. 

“There weren’t nothin’ we coulda done,” Pipe adds. “We tried.”

There’s quiet for a moment. Pipe puts his arm around Jack’s shoulders.

“Were yer there wi’ him?” asks Fours.

Jack just nods but it makes his head pound. He presses his hands to his eyes. They was already swollen even before he started crying.

“Come on,” sighs Dash. “We better get movin’. Get you back so Kloppman can check you over. Don’t want you still bleedin’ somewhere we can’t fix.”

It’s real painful standing but they get him up onto his feet, somehow. Jack looks around, suddenly bewildered. “Where’s this?”

They’re all crowded onto a low roof, only about 10ft square, surrounded by taller tenements and walls. A couple of tall brick chimneys run up one side of the roof and when he puts his hand against one it’s warm. And there’s a little speck of colour amongst the snow; a battered tin mug and what looks like a lump of bread carefully positioned against the chimney near where Jack had been lying. The bread’s all trampled with snow but the mug looks familiar. And he suddenly remembers. There had been a kid, hadn’t there? Little scrap of a thing, all smiles and scruffy blonde hair and refusing to let Jack give up. “Wait, where’s the kid?” he says, looking around. “There was a kid here, saved my life.”

“Yeah, the kid with the crutch,” Dash says. “He’s the reason we found you. Came all the way down to the lodging house to get us.”

“He thought you was Dash for a while which caused some confusion,” add Pipe. “Kid’s quite the rat terrier when he gets his teeth into somethin’, let me tell ya.”

“Yeah,” mumbles Jack, tiredly. “I guess he was. Didn’t even get his name.”

“It’s ‘Charlie’,” says Pipe. “But you can ask him yourself, he’s still back at Duane Street far as I knows. Dash weren't sure he was telling us the truth about ya, so Squint’s keepin’ him there ‘till we’s sure he ain’t one of Nickel’s boys.”

“You didn’t do nothin’ to him, did ya?” Jack says, suddenly alarmed. “Dash!”

“Cool it, Kelly. Course we didn’t. We was just being cautious, alright? Come on, you can see for yourself soon as we is home.”

They stand up to leave. Jack takes one last look around at the tiny rooftop and points to the tin mug lying in the snow.

“Grab that, would ya?” 

Fours picks up the tin cup and stuffs it in her pocket. “Why?”

“That kid look to you like he had many possessions to lose?”

Fours shrugs, and then they set about manhandling Jack down the ladder. It’s clear enough by the time they reach the street that he’s in worse shape than he thought. The sunlight, even weak as it is, burns his eyes and the ringing in his ear is throbbing with the beat of his head. There’s a deep pain in his guts, and even breathin’ hurts. Pipes and Dash get his arms over their shoulders and they set off behind Fours, Jack stumbling between them. Least with one of them on each side he don’t have to keep his eyes open. It helps a bit, but there ain’t a part of him that don’t sting or ache or throb. He throws up onto the snow as soon as they start walking and the other newsies gripe and complain but they hold on to him and they don’t let him go.

They’s been walking for maybe ten minutes when he throws up a second time, and suddenly a shout cuts through the ringing in his head; a man’s voice, and stomping feet. Jack cracks his eyes open and manages not to groan. A cop.

“Oi! Is that boy drunk?”

“No, sir,” says someone that sounds like Pipe. “No, he certainly ain’t, sir.”

“Drunk?” says Dash, sounding offended. “He’s only 14, sir. And ‘sides, it’s midday and there’s a lady present!”

“Oh, yes I see there is. Afternoon, miss. But I’d like to know what exactly is going on here?”

“Our friend is right sick, sir,” Fours offers. “That’s why we’re takin’ him back ter his gaff.”

“Sick?” says the cop. He uses his billy club to tilt Jack’s hat back. “He looks like he’s been run over by a cart! You boy, what happened to your face?”

Jack tries to keep his eyes wide open as possible to give the impression of being awake, innocent and law-abiding. “Work accident, sir. Fell off a ladder.”

“Really?” says the cop. “You hit every rung on the way down?”

“Must ’ave, sir,” Jack mumbles. “Can only hope it improves the face me mother gave me.”

The cop gives a snort. Jack feels a trickle of something hot dripping down inside his collar under his ear. He’s bleeding again. 

“You been to a doctor, boy? You look half dead. Are you sure you ain’t been fighting?”

“We’ll take himsel’ to a doctor now, sir.” says Fours. “Right now, sir. Thank you, sir.”

They take a couple of steps forward, and the cop doesn’t stop them so they walk on by. Jack’s trying not to hold his breath. Pipe glances back.

“He’s still watching,” he mutters. 

“I thinks I might be bleedin’ outta my ears,” Jack observes.

“Let’s get back, quick,” Dash says. “‘Fore anyone else clocks us. Jackie boy, think you could try not to throw up at the feet of any more bulls?”

“Do my best,” Jack mutters. “But I ain’t making no promises.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie and Jack meet at last, and Charlie gets faced with a decision.

“Hey, Charlie. Wake up.”

Charlie reaches out for the crutch the moment he wakes and only then blinks his eyes open. He looks about, completely disoriented. It’s bright and warm, there’s electric bulbs burning overhead, and there’s noise and clatter and voices. It’s so different to what he expects, what he is used to. He sits up, quickly, rubbing his eyes. He’s in a lower bunk in a real dormitory and there are kids everywhere. They’re scampering across the bunks, laughing, squabbling, playing cards, leaning out of the tall windows smoking cigarette stubs...It’s the twinge in his leg that finally reminds him where he is. This is the newboys’ lodging house. He found that fella in the snow and then he came here to get help. Somehow he’d ended up falling asleep in some other kids’ bed, a kid that had died, and then while he was out of it all these newsies came back and any minute now they is gonna spot Charlie sleeping in their friend's bed and see that he don’t belong and they'll get real mad…

“Hey, it’s okay,” says the voice again. “You’s safe, remember?” 

He turns to see a guy crouching beside the bunk. He’s short for his age and kind of stocky, with a tanned olive-colour face and wispy dark hair. It takes Charlie a few seconds to recognise him without the perpetual pipe in his mouth. 

“You're Pipe,” he says.

The other fella grins, showing gappy teeth. “Got it in one.”

“Jack!” Charlie almost shouts, suddenly remembering. “Did you find him? Is he okay? Did he--”

Pipe nods. “He’s gonna be fine. They beat the tar outta him, but he’ll live. Probably all thanks to you.”

Relief makes him giddy. “Good. That’s real good.”

“Anyway,” says Pipe. “I just wanted to say thanks. You did us a good turn, kid. You got heart.”

Charlie looks away. “I didn’t do nothin’ no-one else woulda done.”

“Sure,” says Pipe, skeptically, but he doesn't push it. “Listen, they’ll be bringing out supper in an hour. I would have let you sleep but Jack was askin’ about you, and I was thinkin’...”

“Can I see him?”

“Think we can manage that. Come on, then.”

Charlie scrambles to the edge of the bed and feels around for his boots. Like usual, he stuffs the loose laces inside first and then pushes his feet after. The insides is almost dry he's been here so long. Charlie gets his left foot good and steady on the floor and plants the crutch beside it before he risks standing up. He’s a bit wobbly, and little jolts of cramping pain go up and down his leg and back, but it’s okay. He can stand and he can walk and his boots is almost dry. Things is lookin' up. He gets the crutch comfortable under his arm and then nods to Pipe. 

“You gonna make it?” Pipe asks. He sounds slightly amused. “‘Cause I heard you objects to being carried.”

Charlie shrugs, a little sheepish. “Sorry,” he said. “I just gotta make my own way, ya know?”

“Sure,” says Pipe again, and Charlie can’t tell if he understands what Charlie’s saying or not. 

Navigating the room is kind of like crossing a main street on the lower East Side in the middle of the afternoon, which is to say, chaos. There’s caps and pillows and shoes being hurled everywhere and fifty kids from what looks like six to sixteen barrelling around like out-of-control wagons and yelling their heads off. How he slept through all this he has no idea. Like most street kids Charlie is usually a light sleeper; must have been really wiped out. Can’t remember the last time he slept so good. Pipe clears a way between the bunks and Charlie follows along in his wake, feeling more than a few stares and curious comments following him, which start to make him nervous. Then they go past Specs, Wattles and Finch and the trio greet Charlie like a long-lost brother. Henry and Smoke are next, loitering by the door, and they both give him backslaps and grins. It’s a weird feeling, but a good one.

Charlie follows Pipe out of the chaos into the hall he remembers from before. The stairs lay to the right, but they turn left and go up the corridor. More newsies run past in various states of being half-dressed, racing each other for the stairs. Pipe sees Charlie’s confused look. 

“Wash rooms are downstairs,” he explains. “There’s always a rush for the tubs this time of day. Here.”

He goes to a door on their right, the opposite side of the building and gestures Charlie in. It’s another dormitory but about half the size of the one they came from. There’s around thirty boys in here, talking and laughing and playing cards, but it’s a lot less chaotic than the other room, and no-one seems to be yelling at least. Pipe leads him down the room to the far end by the windows, where most of the other boys are avoiding, and then points out a figure sitting up on the lower bunk of the last bed, holding something against his head and looking out the window.

“Hey, Kelly,” Pipes calls out loudly as Charlie approaches. “You got a visitor.”

The fella turns, wincing, and Charlie sees a familiar face. It breaks into a smile that he hasn't seen yet.

“It’s you!” Charlie says, limping forward, excitedly. “You really are okay!”

The guy makes a coughing sort of laugh. “Yeah, I’m okay. All thanks to you. Now I don’t remember if we did this already but-” He’s holding a steaming hot cloth against his right ear so he holds out his left hand to shake. “Jack Kelly.”

Charlie shakes it back. “Charlie Morris.”

“Charlie Morris, eh?” Jack smiles at him, crookedly. His face is quite the picture; he’s sporting pretty fantastic shiners on both eyes, there’s an ugly black bruise across one cheek down to his jaw where the skin is split open and he has a bandage around his head. There’s bandages peeking out of the neck of his shirt too. He sees Charlie looking at the hot compress in his hand.

“Burst eardrum,” he explains, ruefully. “Sorry if I’s yellin’ at ya. Will be fine in a week or two.”

“Did ya see a doctor?”

Jack shrugs. “No need. Kloppman’s misses, that’s the super's wife, patches us up if we get knocked about. Apart from achin’ all over and scramblin’ my head up a bit, I’m fine. Be right as rain before you knows it. Anyway, sit down, wont ya? You’re making me ache more just lookin’ atcha.”

He gestures at his bed. Charlie perches on the edge, his right foot dangling off the floor.

“What happened?” he asks Jack. “To you, last night?”

“I did somethin’ stupid is what happened. Lucky you was there to save my bacon, Charlie Morris.”

“Was it to do with Joe Nickels and the fight with Midtown?”

Jack gives him a sharp, curious look.

“I been here all day,” Charlie says. “And I can hear outta _both_ ears.”

“Punk,” says Jack, and swipes at him with the cloth. Then he sighs and the smile fades a bit. “Guess I owes you an explanation, but I ain’t really sure if I got one. Well, here goes. There was a kid here, a newsie, what died.”

“Clicks,” says Charlie. “Finch said it was okay that I could kip in his bed earlier.”

“Yeah, that was okay,” Jack says. “He ain’t using it no more. Thing is, he was young. Young like you. Only just started last year. It’s been a hard winter, I mean…” Jack glances at Charlie, at his ragged clothes. “Shit, you know. But this year everything seemed to happen at once. One thing after another and Clicks ended up in the Refuge for trying to steal some food for us, and…” he swallows, and then looks away. “Point is, he got sick and died a stupid, pointless death right in front of me, and it made me so mad that I went to find the one person I knew would kick my head in, no questions asked.”

Charlie considers this for a moment in silence. “Is that what you wanted him to do?”

“Huh?”

“Nickels. Did you want him to kick your head in?”

Jack chuckles, low. “No. I wasn’t tryin’ ta get dead. Just spoilin' for a fight. I knew if I stayed around here I’d end up getting mad at one of these fellas and yelling at someone, or worse. I just wanted to throw a few punches, you know? Guess busting my ear and pissin’ blood are just the price I had to pay.”

Charlie nods, slowly. He’s not sure he’s ever been that angry. It’s hard to picture. He knows he throws his fists around whenever someone takes his crutch or tries to carry him, but that’s fear rather than anger, fear of losing the independence others take for granted but that he has to fight so hard for every day. And he knows about loss too, and about what it's like to be so sad that it feels like you is being torn open from the inside and all you wanna do is scream. Maybe it’s all the same. 

“Anyway,” says Jack, looking away. “I don’t know why you wanna hear all that.”

“Will you do it again?” asks Charlie. “Go get yourself beat up for no reason? You shouldn’t, I mean. They might not stop next time.”

Jack shrugs. “Can’t promise I ain’t gonna get in any more fights. Sometimes you gotta make a stand. But I ain’t intending to go lookin’ for another beatin’, if that helps." He grins a little ruefully and tilts his head towards his bad ear. "I learned that lesson.”

“If you get that angry feelin’ again, come find me, and yell at me, yeah?” Charlie offers. “I promise I don’t mind. Just don’t wanna find anyone lyin' in the street like that again. Besides, I almost broke my neck slipping down that fire escape this morning. It’d be a real waste of all that effort if you was to just go get yourself dead for real in a week’s time.”

Jack stares at him for a second, then starts to laugh. 

“You’re something else, you know that?”

Charlie hesitates. “Is that good?”

“Yeah, kid, that’s good. Here,” Jack says, and leans down to the far side of the bed, fishing around with his free hand. He tosses something onto the bedsheet in front of Charlie; his battered old tin mug. “Picked this up for ya. Didn’t want it to get left behind. You seemed kinda attached.”

Charlie stares at his little white-and-blue cup. For a moment he’d been happy to see it, but then all the excitement and smiles and yelling and back-slaps and _warmth_ he’s felt in the last few hours just drains outta him like someone’s pulled the plug in a sink. 

“Thanks,” he says, holding the mug tight.

Jack notices. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’” says Charlie, and pastes on a smile. “Thanks for grabbin’ it for me. Woulda been a pain to hafta find another.”

Jack sits up a bit straighter. “I mighta got my face beat in, but I still got eyes, kid. Somethin’s up.”

Charlie turns the tin mug over in his hands, feeling the familiar dents and nicks.

“It’s nothin’, really it ain’t. I just...It’s been nice, ya know? Not that you got hurt, obviously, and I was pretty scared mosta the time but...your newsies. This place.” He gestures around the room, it’s warmth and safety and shouts of distant laughter. “You. It’s gonna make goin’ back out there in the cold on my own just a bit harder, is all.”

He glances up at Jack, and stammers a bit. “I ain’t complainin’. I knows I got it good; still got one working leg, I got me brains and I knows I got real lucky with this puss,” he gestures towards his smile, the one that seldom fails to send pennies tinkling into his begging cup. “I guess you just don’t really realise what ya ain’t got ‘til you sees it.”

Charlie plants his crutch, shuffles his feet and stands up. He can see from the windows that it’s almost fully dark outside; he don’t know this part of town well and he still has to go find somewhere he can hide out for a few days and rest his leg without anyone bothering him. It’s time to hit the street before the night gets any later. He looks to Jack, getting ready to say goodbye. 

Jack Kelly’s looking straight at him. There seems to be something complicated going on behind his eyes, but given that his face looks like half-risen bread dough right now it’s kinda hard for Charlie to be sure quite what. After a moment, though, Jack says;

“You ever think about puttin’ those talents of yours towards a more lucrative goal?”

Charlie blinks, utterly confused.

“Oh, come on,” says Jack. “What was you expecting me to say, _‘Oh well, too bad kid, thanks for the help, now beat it’_?”

Charlie shrugs. That's exactly what he had been expecting. “I don’t know what you's talkin' about,” he says.

Jack gestures around the room in the same way Charlie just did. “This. This life right here. If you want it, you can have it too.”

Charlie just stares at him, heart pounding. 

“Christsakes,” mutters Jack. “Do I gotta spell it out? I’s talking about bein’ a newsie. _You_ bein’ a newsie, Charlie. Carrying the banner, hawking the headlines. You could live here. It ain’t cheap but we gets by. And that limp would sell 50 papes a week all by itself.”

“I can’t,” Charlie stammers. “You seen my leg. And I also got a bad back, a bad hand. Some days I can’t hardly walk…”

“So what?” says Jack, with a shrug. “Blink's only got one eye, and Mush ain’t got no teeth. Wildy had half his face burned off in a fire once, Ducky is dumber than a box of hair, and did you get a load of those ears on Wattles?”

Charlie laughs. He can’t help it.

“Point is,” said Jack, “Ain’t none of us perfect. But I seen you got one helluva mouth on ya, you ain’t a quitter and I bet that grin would charm even old Pulitzer himself. You got what it takes to sell papes, kid, I knows it. I got an instinct. And ‘sides, I need you nearby in case I start tryin’ to use my fists instead of my head again and someone has to come pick me up outta the snow.”

Jack hesitates for a moment, then adds, more seriously, “Look. I ain’t saying it’s easy, this life. You gotta work 12 or 14 hours a day just to make ends meet and too often even that ain’t enough. But you’ll have a roof over your head more often than not, and you’ll have the rest of us watchin’ your back, right? We looks out for each other.”

Charlie doesn’t say anything. He's too overwhelmed. Somewhere, a few floors below, a supper bell starts ringing. Yells and cheers erupt in the rooms around and there’s the sound of feet in the corridor. 

Jack watches Charlie for a moment, and then just nods to himself. He turns, painfully slowly, sliding his legs out of bed. “Just think about it, okay? Come on, I’ll spot ya supper either way. No use headin’ out hungry if you decide ta go. It’s pork and beans tonight. You can think about it over food and then maybe--”

“Yes,” Charlie’s mouth says before his brain has even started thinking it through. “I’ll do it.”

Jack looks at him, and his mouth starts to crook into a smile. “Sorry,” he says. “I recently busted up my ear and I don’t hear so good. Did ya say something?”

“Yeah,” says Charlie, standing up straight. Then he starts grinning. “Yeah. I’m gonna be a newsie, Jack.”

Jack smiles even wider. 

“Attaboy,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter is the epilogue.


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Crutchie.

“So it’s six cents a night for a bed, so long as you gets in before nine,” Jack says. “After ten pm it’s eleven cents and Klopp locks up at midnight so be back by then or you is sleepin’ on the roof. Breakfast and supper is six cents each, but if dough is tight you can get a pretty good dinner for less elsewhere; some of the food carts around here is run by old newsies who’ll charge ya less than what they’s meant to, and the nuns up at St Andrews’ is always good for a free breakfast. You gettin’ all this?”

Charlie nods. “Supper at seven, night school half seven ‘till nine except on Sundays. Pay Mr Kloppman in advance. No fightin’, thievin’, or swearin’.”

“Right,” says Jack, pleased. He finishes the laces with a tidy knot and then taps Charlie’s boot. “Other foot.”

Charlie slides his other foot over while Jack continues to talk.

“Okay, so that’s livin’. Now you buy your papes at two for a penny, and sell for a penny each. Pipe’ll start you off with 20 papes morning and evening, and if you sell all those, you’ll make just enough that you’ll be able to get a bed and eat twice a day.”

“Okay. I knows how to count, Jack.”

“‘Course you do,” Jack agrees easily. “Just makin’ sure. Now you stick with Specs and Finch, don’t let the Delanceys give you no grief, and ignore anything Ducky tells ya and you’ll be just fine.”

He ties off the second boot and climbs painfully up onto his feet. “Let’s take a look atcha then, kid.” He holds out his hands and hauls Charlie up too. The kid finds his balance for a moment and then straightens up. Jack eyes him, critically. “Well?” He demands. “How’d they feel?”

Charlie tests the boots, hopping up and down a couple of times on his left leg and then cautiously touching his bad toes onto the floor. He grins, wide. 

“Good. They fit good, Jack.”

Jack nods, approvingly. No newsie was gonna sell papes in shoes as bad as the ones Charlie had walked in with a week ago. The miles they did, badly fitting shoes could be a killer. Luckily, rich folks sometimes donated cast-off clothes and old boots to the lodging house for boys that needed it, and Missus Kloppman had found some clobber in Charlie’s size in the attic. Charlie didn’t have no money yet to pay for them but the Klopps were good people, and they would let kids keep a tab or work to pay for what they needed. A week of helping the lodging house staff with the laundry, sweeping up and cleaning, and Charlie had earned two shirts, a pair of nearly new trousers and proper boots. He’s still got his old, tatty coat on though, with its cloth belt instead of buttons. Turns out polio left the kid with a gammy right hand too to match his leg, and that means he struggles with buttons and boot laces. Mostly he seems to get by pulling his clothes on and off with the buttons still fastened. But he’s got the rest of the newsies now, and when he can afford a better coat they’ll help him with that too.

Jack considers the soon-to-be newsie in front of him.

“Not bad, kid," he concludes. "Only one thing missing.” He pulls a rolled-up cap out of his pocket, shakes it out and sticks it onto Charlie’s head. “There. Now you is a proper newsie.”

Charlie pulls the cap off and looks at it. His hair is sticking up in little adorable tufts.

“Hey, this is yours!” He says. “I remember this.”

Jack waves him off. “I got another. Anyway, it ain’t my colour. Missus Klopp got the blood out fine though.”

He looks Charlie over again. The difference a week makes...Clean, mended clothes, a hot bath, plenty of food and a decent place to sleep and it was like looking at a new fella. Or, maybe more accurate, it was like looking at the same fella but with all the crap cleared away. This bright, cheery face with its sunshine smile had been there all along and maybe nothing that much has changed that matters. Jack thinks back to the kid who had fallen over him, lying there bleeding and tossed aside in that snowy street. That kid was wearing tatty second-hand clothes and scavenged boots more hole than leather, carrying his dented tin mug, eating yesterday’s stale bread and curling up against the chimneys to survive off of other people’s leftover warmth. A kid that saved what other people threw away. And he’d saved Jack, for sure.

“Hey Jack! Hey Charlie!” 

There’s a shout from across the room that makes both of them look up. Specs, Finch and Albert are standing in the doorway to the dormitory, already in their street clothes. 

“Mornin’, boys.”

“When you comin’ selling again, Jack?” 

“Soon,” Jack reassures them. “‘Nother coupla days for this to go down so I don’t look so much like a punching bag and scare all the lady customers.” He gestures to his bruised face, but he knows it’s already lookin’ better than it was. Pain in his ear is goin' off too; he ain’t hearin’ no better yet but it’ll come back in time. Soon as his ribs and his back stop hurtin’ every time he breathes too hard he’ll be straight back out there with his boys.

“Bells about to ring. You ready, Charlie?” says Specs.

Charlie gives a nervous little smile but he looks excited. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

Jack lies back down on his bunk and throws his arm over his eyes. “Then scram, the lotta youse. I needs some peace and quiet.”

“Let’s go boys, come on.”

“Bye, Jack!”

“See ya later, Jack!” 

He gives them a lazy wave and they head off out to face the day. 

* * *

Jack’s sitting up on the edge of the roof looking out over the evening skyline, when he hears the distinct sound of someone awkwardly climbing the fire escape ladder. He’s only slightly surprised when a scruffy blonde head topped with a familiar brown cap pops into sight over the lip of the roof. 

“Give us a hand, Jack?”

Jack rolls his eyes, tosses his cigarette stub, and jogs over to grab Charlie’s hand. His fingers is warm and alive against Jack’s palm.

“You know, one day,” he says as he pulls the smaller kid up to safety. “One day you’s gonna fall and break your neck clambering about like this on that gam.”

“Nah,” says Charlie, cheerfully, dragging his crutch up and setting it down beside him. “You’ll catch me before that happens. Anyway, I'm good at landin’ on my feet.” He crinkles his nose. “Well, foot, anyway.”

“So?” Jack says. “How’d it go?”

“I made 34 cents, Jack,” says Charlie with his eyes shining. “34 cents! I don’t usually see that much dough in a week! Course I gave two dimes of it to Pipe to pay for what I borrowed this morning and I owe you and Mr Kloppman an awful lot, but…”

“You’ll get there,” Jack says. “A few days and you’ll have got used to the weight and then you can start handling more papes. More papes means more profit and then you’ll be able to begin payin’ some of it back. And once I’m back out there with ya I’ll show ya my best selling spots, and you and me, pal, we’ll be shifting a thousand papes a week, guaranteed.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, kid.” 

They look out over the rooftops at the gathering evening, street lights flickering into life around them and painting the buildings orange with light and blue with shadow. The wind sends an icy gust swirling between them.

“It’s awful nice up here,” Charlie says with a shiver. Jack’s surprised.

“You think so, huh? Thought you’d wanna spend every hour indoors now you got a nice bed.”

Charlie is looking out over the city, smiling. “Na. Been a street kid so long it feels kinda strange being inside. I mean, it’s safe and it’s warm and all the fellas are great. But sometimes it feels a little closed in, ya know?”

“Yeah, Charlie. I know. In the summer, sometimes, I saves my dough and sleeps up on the roof here where I can see the stars.”

“Sounds nice, Jack,” says Charlie. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says; “So, Jack. Do you got a nickname?”

“Huh?”

“A nickname. All the others got one.”

“That’d be tellin’,” says Jack, with an amused glance. “And they don’t all. There’s Henry, he don’t. Nor Albert. And Finch, that’s just his surname.”

“Yeah, but most everyone else does.” 

“Why?" says Jack leaning back. "You want one?”

Charlie thinks about it. “I dunno. Maybe.” After a moment he says more decisively, “I’ll tell them they can call me Crutchie.”

Jack pulls a face. “‘Crutchie’? You’s telling me your definin’ characteristic is the damn crutch?”

“Well, ain’t it?” says Crutchie, with a grin.

Jack laughs. “No, Crutchie,” he says, and throws an arm around his shoulders. “Not to me.”

* * *

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we go. That was super fun and completely absorbed my brain for about three solid days that I was not expecting to spend churning out a multi-chapter fic from start to finish with no planning in a new fandom. Came out a lot more angsty than I was expecting but sometimes you just have to let the story tell itself. Hope you enjoyed this and I didn't sideline anyone's favourites (well, I know I did but there's like a million newsies...so many newsies...some just had to go back in the box for next time). My head casting for this was the 2017 filmed version because that's the one I know but you do you over there, reader. 
> 
> The history of turn-of-the-century New York is so fascinating and I really enjoyed visiting. I tried to be as historically truthful as possible, and most of what's included here about newsie life, living costs and the layout of the Duane Street lodging house is as accurate as I could make it and stay within the bounds of what happens in the show. Hope you enjoyed too, and if you did make it to the end, I would love any comments or thoughts!  
> Stay safe out there. E x


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